aerdnasarrih

I’ve been going through some of the dialogue from some of the this season’s Who episodes that I’ve missed, and I just can’t accept the way the series is turning out so far. My disjointed and possibly incoherent objections are as follows:

One: last season we had the universe all restarted and Amy restored to her family and happiness. This season we have clingy, “has too much faith in the Doctor,” abandonment issues Amy, who suddenly seems to lose all interest in her own daughter once she finds out said missing daughter was best friend Mel, who regenerates into River Song. No wonder the Doctor seems to prefer to see her as little Amelia — I would too.

Two: the more I think about it the more the idea that River Song is Amy’s and Rory’s daughter just does not make sense. It just doesn’t.

Three: I really don’t believe in the “they made a baby in the Tardis and therefore it’s a Human Time Lord Magic Babby!” at all. If it was that easy to make more Time Lords, don’t you think the Doctor would have known about it? It’s his race and his Tardis, after all. Why does cool snake lady and her girlfriend get to be the one who figures this out? Where did the Doctor’s big brain that knows all things go?

Four: people keep saying that Steven Moffat doesn’t have really evil villains, but that Kovarian lady is a fucking evil bitch who needs to be put into the heart of the nearest sun. I’m not sure why I’m supposed to feel any sort of sympathy for her and her crusade against the Doctor because he’s so ooooh, scary.

Five: this whole thing where the Doctor has scared so many people across the universe with his awful awesomeness or something is fucked up and wrong. Maybe I’ve been watching a Doctor Who from an alternate universe, but I was under the impression that the Doctor was a hero who did good and helped people and that the sort of people who were afraid of the Doctor were bad people who should have been afraid of him and deserved to be scared. What fucked up shit is this speech River gives him at the end of Good Man Goes To War where it’s all his fault that the evil people have stolen the magic baby to make war against him because he lost his temper with quite a bit of justification. If you will recall, these people had kidnapped his friend and forced her to have a baby in a tube, and they kept his friend, letting her bond with the kid, all the while making sure the new mother knew they planned to take the baby away and do something horrible to it that would turn said baby into weapon to kill Amy’s best friend, the Doctor. You know, I do think that not only is there nothing wrong with the Doctor being a bit miffed that this happened, I heartily approve of his anger. Because it’s an actual normal emotional response (kidnap pregnant friend, force pregnant friend to have baby in tube, torment friend with knowledge that baby will be taken away and psychologically tortured into becoming killer of YOU — yeah, I’d be just a bit FUCKING PISSED OFF), in a series where most of the characters haven’t been having a lot of normal emotional reactions to anything. And I include River’s “your anger is wrong and it’s your fault all this happened” rant, because I don’t for one minute trust her motives at all. (If it turns out she’s just really their daughter it will both be squicky and boring, because it would be great if she was always the mastermind of this, from way back with Ten.)

Six: the Doctor’s depression. It’s getting very wearing. I know lots of the fans love it, because this isn’t the Seventies anymore and self-hatred and depression are cool now. I mean what the fuck, when do they show the Doctor cutting himself? I mean, self-knowledge of one’s own flaws is one thing, but to be continually down on oneself is not healthy, and it’s not healthy to be all accepting of your impending murder either. (The previews of next week give some hope that he’s fighting off this haze of gloom and trying to ask questions about it, but it’s a real downer all the same to see him moping about saying “good-bye” to everyone. We had that with Ten. It was shit then. When I said I didn’t like the way Ten dragged out his death forever because he didn’t want to die, I didn’t mean I wanted a Doctor who was all “accepting” of dying either. I can’t imagine what sort of effect this is having on the kids who watch this show.)

Seven: again we have companions fobbed off with expensive presents. I just find that weird. One of the things Doctor Who was all about was there was more to life than material gain. I’ve nothing against material gain and nice presents, but it just looks weird in context. I mean, didn’t Rory and Amy already live somewhere? And they did have a car, though I imagine it was impounded by the police after being left in that field. (And what happened to that? They were being chased by cops, courtesy of Mel. Surely the car, registered to the Williams, would have gotten them some sort of questioning by the authorities. Not to mention where was their friend who was wanted for stealing a car. Not to mention they were using their own car to trespass in a field and basically vandalize it. I guess we’re supposed to just forget about that.)

Eight: this is more for fan reaction than anything going on in the show — it concerns complaining about how the Doctor is dumping another companion and telling her what to do and so on. Look. It’s the Doctor’s boat. No one has any right to travel with him. If he decides that the companion needs to go home now, that’s it. I don’t care how said companion decides, all on her own (it’s been her — in the new show anyway all of the guys were only traveling with the Doctor because they were either girlfriends or husbands — more on that subject someday), that she wants to travel with him “forever” (I’m looking at you, ROES, and, sadly, Donna) and wants to devote her life to him, if he decides that’s not what HE wants, that’s too damn bad. The Doctor is not obligated to let people travel with him for the rest of their lives just because they went about with him for a while. Yes, even if they’ve been a help to him. Because it’s HIS spaceship. It’s like this: if I ask you to come with me to the grocery store and help me shop because I’ve got a bad leg, that doesn’t mean you get to ride in my car forever everywhere. And as a matter of fact, what sort of help has Amy been to him? Rather, he was the one who helped her — he sealed up the crack in her wall, and actually sacrificed himself to put the universe back together which resulted in her having a life again. Sure, her remembering of him brought him back too, that was nice. I’d call it even-steven, not “now you must take me across space-time always.” (I’ll just add here that this isn’t actually the way the Amy character is acting — it’s the way fans are acting about her.)

Nine: speaking of Amy’s use as a companion; I do wonder why she was still going about with the Doctor, reluctant husband in tow. Because Rory was reluctant. Sure, he seemed to enjoy himself a bit, but he clearly would rather be home on Earth. The thrill of traveling through space and time didn’t seem to be present in the breast of Rory Willliams. (In many ways, he’s like a lot of Who companions across the ages — male ones especially — at least if they were from contemporary Earth and British. This blasé attitude seems to be some sort of British thing. Girls get excited; men affect a stiff upper lip and ask for a cuppa. I dunno.) Some of his attitude could be justified by the whole 2,000-year-old-plastic-Roman thing. And he did make himself useful, so he wasn’t a drag or a load. Amy I don’t get. I guess she and the Doctor were just best buds, and she cheered him up, but really, the Doctor needs companions who do more than cheer him up — and then drive him into paroxysms of self-hatred and depression when their lives get endangered because after all, he’s a danger magnet. He needs someone who doesn’t go around the bend (or get pregnant and kidnapped) when things go south. I would once have said he needed someone like River Song but her story has gotten all squicky with the whole “the Tardis maded a girlfriend for you” thing.

That’s all for now.